


Aqua Vitae

by onekisstotakewithme



Series: San Francisco [1]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 1950s, Bath Houses, Bisexual B. J. Hunnicutt, Bisexual Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, F/M, M/M, OT3, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Queerness, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Quarantine Dopamine Machine, Queer History, San Francisco, everyone is queer and happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onekisstotakewithme/pseuds/onekisstotakewithme
Summary: As an anniversary present, BJ and Peg show Hawk a new part of San Francisco
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Series: San Francisco [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184459
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	Aqua Vitae

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daylight_angel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daylight_angel/gifts).



Hawkeye, BJ and Peg are crammed in the back of a taxi headed for parts unknown.

(Or at least, BJ knows where they’re going, but he doesn’t seem inclined to share.)

Hawkeye doesn’t know California that well yet, but even he knows from the increasing neon lights and street names flashing past as the sky darkens outside the taxi windows that they’re heading into the city.

“Are you _sure_ you won’t tell us where we’re going?” he asks BJ, leaning around Peg, who’s sitting between them in BJ’s jacket, hands between her knees.

“I told you,” BJ says with a maddening smile. “It’s a surprise.”

“Well you’ll have to go easy on me, this is my first kidnapping.”

Peg laughs, though it turns into a shiver, and she leans into Hawkeye gratefully when he wraps an arm around her. “Thanks, darling.”

“It must be important,” he says to BJ, who’s still smirking at him like a Cheshire cat, “for you to drag us out here on a freezing cold April night-”

“You’re going awfully native if you think _this_ is cold. Don’t you still have snow back in Maine right now?”

“That’s not the point.”

BJ reaches over and flicks him on the nose, making Peg giggle. “No, Hawk, the point is that I’m trying to do something nice for you. For _us.”_

“And yet, you won’t tell us what it is.”

“Nope.”

“Uh _huh._ ‘Curiouser and curiouser’ said Alice,” he remarks to Peg.

She gives him a look. “You don’t look anything like an Alice.”

“We’re here,” the cab driver announces before Hawkeye gets the chance to ask what he _does_ look like. 

“Beej, you didn’t drag us all the way out here to murder us, did you?” Hawkeye asks, making the cabbie laugh as BJ pays him. “Because I can think of nicer spots.”

“C’mon darling,” Peg says, tugging him out of the taxi and onto the sidewalk. “You can keep me warm.”

“Why _Peg,_ ” he says, in a low, scandalized whisper. “And you a married woman.”

But he wraps his arms around her all the same, enjoying the anonymity of this quiet street, where nobody knows who belongs to who.

“So what are we doing here?” he asks BJ, as the cab pulls away.

The streetlights are reflecting in the puddles from the recent rain, the building in front of them nondescript, barring a single neon sign that reads _Terra Incognita._

“Showing you the sights” BJ says, still smug. “Shall we?”

Hawkeye has no clue what’s going on, but Peg looks at ease as she takes his hand, and that gives him a little bit of strength.

That, and he trusts BJ.

“Lead on, Beej.”

BJ steps forward, opening the door for them, releasing a gust of warm, steamy air from inside.

It smells like the bathhouses in Tokyo, and the memory stops Hawkeye short, standing on a wet sidewalk an ocean and a lifetime away, and he’s starting to get an inkling of why they’re here. 

The only other person inside is a bored-looking woman sitting behind a reception desk who barely looks up when the three of them walk in, even though they bring a cold spring breeze with them. “It’s not women’s night until Thursday.”

“Actually,” BJ says, leaning up against the desk with ease, though Hawk can see his hands shaking. “We have a reservation. Under Porterfield.”

 _Porterfield?_ Hawkeye mouths at Peg who has to muffle a giggle in the sleeve of her borrowed jacket.

The woman still doesn’t look up as she passes over a key. “Room 281.”

“Thank you.”

“Towels are in the room.”

“Thanks,” BJ says easily, before turning to the two of them. “Are you coming?”

“Darling, when you said you had plans tonight, this wasn’t exactly what I thought you had in mind,” Peg teases as they follow BJ past the check-in desk and down a narrow hallway.

“Yeah,” Hawk agrees, “I’m still waiting to eat at the Top of the Mark.”

And then, the smell of steam becomes stronger as the hallway opens up into a room, and Hawkeye has to consciously keep from letting his mouth fall open in shock. 

Because everywhere, _everywhere…_ are men.

Men sitting on benches around the walls of the room, in a large pool, in smaller tubs.

Men of all sizes, colours, shapes, with one glorious thing in common- none of them are clad in anything more than a towel. 

And some of them are very obviously together.

Some of them, as Hawkeye watches with envy, are _kissing._

And all Hawkeye can do is stare, because even in Tokyo, it wasn’t like _this,_ there weren’t men kissing openly without fear. 

“I… I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he says, when he can speak again. 

“Welcome to the baths.” BJ kisses the top of his head, shamelessly, but still sounds a little nervous when he asks, “Do you like it?”

“Like it? Beej, I…”

But he doesn’t have the words, and surely BJ must be able to tell that he’s utterly out of his depth.

 _Terra incognita_ indeed.

“Come on, darlings,” Peg says, nudging him gently. “Let’s get to our room, shall we? I’m starting to get weird looks.”

It’s true- she’s the only woman in here.

Hawkeye is still drinking it all, greedily, disbelievingly, because this- it’s like something out of science fiction.

He feels like a tourist, but he can’t seem to stop.

Peg gently takes his hand and tugs him along.

Room 281 is in a darker corner on the second floor, and they’ve barely made it in the door when BJ pulls out a bottle of champagne.

“Wow,” Hawkeye says, still reeling. “You really pull out all the stops.”

“Well…” BJ blushes. “It’s for you.”

“You should’ve seen him on our wedding night,” Peg teases, matter of fact, unbuttoning her dress.

“Uh… Beej?”

“Mm?” BJ is busy unbuckling his belt, a sight that never fails to take Hawk’s breath away- though tonight he’s already lightheaded. 

“What’s the big idea?”

BJ looks up, confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Hawkeye says, fully clothed and off balance, aware that he sounds like a rube and hating himself for it, “Why are we here?”

“Don’t you want to see the tub first?” BJ asks, trying to look innocent, as if he hasn’t dragged his husband and wife to- well.

“Preferably before they raid the place,” Peg murmurs to herself, opening one of the doors off the main room. “Good news, I found the tub.”

“We’ll be there in a second, Peg.” BJ tugs Hawk down so they’re both sitting on the edge of the bed. “Hawk?”

“They’re… like us,” Hawkeye says softly. 

BJ nods. “Some of them.”

“They like men.”

Another nod. 

“The water’s great!” Peg calls from the other room. 

BJ wraps an arm around Hawk’s shoulder. “Hawk… is it too much?”

“Well,” Hawk says, trying not to cry, “there’s nothing like that in Maine.”

“There are places like this all over the city,” BJ says, cupping Hawk’s cheek. “Secret places, where we can be ourselves.”

“It’s perfect,” Hawkeye says softly, and he has to duck his head to hide the tears in his eyes. “God, Beej, it’s… it’s perfect.”

“Do you want to do this?”

“Yes,” Hawkeye says, but even as he’s getting undressed, he says, “Don’t think you’re getting out of taking me to Top of the Mark.”

BJ laughs. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Have you…” Hawkeye stops, half-undressed. “Have you ever..?”

BJ shakes his head.

“Then why now?”

BJ smiles, and holds up the champagne. “Call it a special occasion. I’ll see you in the tub.”

He leaves Hawkeye alone to finish getting undressed.

But it also gives Hawkeye a chance to gather his thoughts.

The room with the hot tub is dim, the walls paneled with dark wood, and warm steam envelopes him as he steps inside, closing the door behind him. 

Peggy and BJ are already in the tub, both of them watching him, smiling at him, and his heart _sings_ for love of them, this quiet secretive love.

“About time, darling,” Peg says, grinning, and holding out a hand. “Why don’t you keep us company?”

Hawkeye drops his towel and climbs in, thinking as he sinks into the water what a lucky son of a bitch he is.

This is the last thing he was expecting after a long emergency surgery he’d done this afternoon, and the hot water is bliss on his aching muscles.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” Peg asks, catching a glimpse of his expression.

There’s a sudden lump in his throat, so instead of answering, he just leans in to kiss her, grateful and a bit giddy, and entirely in love.

They break apart when the champagne cork pops.

“So,” Peg says to BJ, “do you have a particular reason you decided to spoil us so thoroughly?”

“It’s our anniversary,” BJ says proudly.

“… darling, I know your surgery must’ve felt long, but it’s _April.”_

“No, no,” BJ says, looking between them. “You really don’t know?”

“Enlighten us,” Hawkeye says, pinching Peg under the water and grinning when she splashes him.

It may just be the heat of the water or the dim lighting, but BJ looks oddly pink. “It’s… it’s the second weekend in April.”

“And?”

“And the second weekend of April, two years ago, you joined our family,” BJ explains. “After however many years of us loving you, we were lucky enough to find out that you loved us back.”

“Oh darling,” Peg says, fondly rolling her eyes, “you’re such a _sap.”_

Hawkeye is again struck dumb by the magnitude of love he feels for BJ, the kind he never thought he’d get in return. “So you- you-”

“I wanted a night where we could just… _be_ together, the three of us,” BJ says softly. “Without the curtains pulled.”

“Why?” Peg asks.

“Because you two are the loves of my life,” BJ says seriously. “As much as you two drive me crazy… My life wouldn’t be worth it without you two and Erin.”

“Oh darling,” Peg says again, softly, before launching herself at BJ, at the same time Hawkeye does. A lot of splashing and giggling ensues.

“I love you,” Hawkeye says when they surface, all of them soaked, tangled up together, as he kisses BJ over and over. “I love you, BJ. I love our life.”

“I love you, Hawk,” BJ says, his voice oddly choked. 

“Excuse me darling,” Peg says, nudging the two of them apart. “May I cut in?”

“He’s all yours.”

And then Peg pushes Hawk back so he’s sitting, cradled in the warm water, and she straddles his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him, her mouth insistent, like she’s asked a question and he’s the answer.

And Hawkeye is just a wide-eyed kid from Maine who never knew he could love two people so much, but he does.

“I love you too,” he says when she pulls away, stroking her hair as she snuggles in.

The tub is big enough for all three of them to have their own space, but they stay in their little huddle, BJ’s arms wrapped around Hawkeye and Peggy, the heat making Hawk feel deliciously languid and drowsy.

“I love you,” he slurs softly.

He knows every inch of these two people, the outline of every bone, each soft curve- he calls each one home.

“Wha’ ‘bout Erin?” he asks, still a little drowsy.

“My sister’s watching her for the night,” BJ explains around a yawn, before pressing a kiss to Hawk’s wet hair. “Figured us parents could use a night alone.”

Hawk smiles. “Happy Anniversary.”

“Well,” BJ says, tenderly, smoothing a strand of Hawk’s hair back into place, “Our family means the world to me, and the least I can do is splash for a treat now and then.”

Hawkeye groans, but Peg laughs. “Make one more joke like that, BJ, and you’ll get splashed.”

“I love you,” Hawkeye says again, so softly that he can barely hear it over the _shsh_ of the water.

“We love you too, Hawk,” Peggy says in return, burying her face in his neck.

And as much as this is _terra incognita_ for Hawkeye, he can’t help but feel right at home, wrapped in his lovers’ arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy "Goodbye, Farewell & Amen" day (it aired February 28, 1983)... and here's to happy endings.  
> xo


End file.
